The Sparrow Gang
by James Landor
Summary: Previously "The Ripper Effect." When information about what happened to the Liars falls into malignant hands, they're tortured all over again. The girls go on the run in order to protect their children, but they can't run forever. The Liars will learn to stop shirking away from danger and start fighting it. The new 'A' should be afraid of them. (Emison, Spoby, Ezria, Haleb)
1. Prologue: The Manuscript

**Housekeeping: Hello Everyone! My brother just got married and now I am vacationing with family, so I haven't been able to write for** The Simple Questions **this week, but I will be continuing with the story within the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, I am uploading the first part of this story, which I already had written. I hope you like it!**

"We should approach this conversation calmly," Spencer warned.

"We should give her a chance to explain herself," Alison agreed as Spencer gently knocked on the door.

Emily was still pouring over the wrinkled manuscript in her hand, rereading it as if the words might change.

Hanna tapped her foot and crossed her arms impatiently.

Alison tried to get her fiancée's attention. "Em?"

"Hm…? Ah, yeah. Calm."

"You bitch!" Hanna screamed as she lunged at Aria, who had only managed to open the door a few inches.

They both toppled to the ground. Hanna straddled her and held her wrists above her head as she screamed.

Aria flinched as saliva sprayed her face.

"What is this?! How could you do this? This is our lives you're hanging out on the line for everyone to see. This is our story, not just yours, _our_ story. What is going on with you? Who are you and what did you do with—"

"I'm not going to publish it!"

"—Aria? She would nev—"

"I didn't publish it." Aria rocked back and forth trying to get free.

"—er do some—what?"

Aria sighed. "I didn't publish it."

They both relaxed and caught their breath. "Oh…," Hanna realized. She stood and brought Aria with her. Once they were standing, Hanna walked behind Aria to brush the dust off of her back and straighten her shirt for her. "Sorry."

"No worries," Aria said out of breath.

"Hanna! What happened to 'calm'?"

She shrugged at Spencer's question. "I was upset."

"Clearly," Alison added.

Emily waved the papers she held in front of Aria. "But in the note you attached with the manuscript, you said that you'd sent a copy to that publisher: Jillian."

"I did. I sent her a copy at the same time I sent you each a copy. Jillian loved it, she offered me a deal."

"For how much?" Spencer asked out of pure curiosity.

Aria's eyes widened at the memory. "A lot….But I turned her down before you probably even opened your copies. I thought I would wait for your feedback, but I realized it would be wrong to publish it either way."

Spencer moved to sit on the couch, and Ali sat next to her on its arm. Emily started pacing and biting her lip. Hanna re-crossed her arms.

Aria took in the silent and tense audience. "I wouldn't do that, I couldn't. I'm sorry I scared you. It started as a journal, I wasn't—I didn't even mean for it to be a book. It was just my way of dealing with things. I wrote the nightmares down."

Alison stood and crossed the room. She placed her hand on Aria's arm to calm her.

"What changed?" Emily asked.

"Did Ezra tell you to submit it?" Spencer wondered.

"No! Not at all. Ezra hates Jillian anyway, he's been working with a different publishing house that's based in Philly."

"And you didn't send it to them because…?"

" _Truncheon Books_ is small, all of five people would have read it."

"Since when do you care?" Hanna asked.

Aria sighed and looked down. "I sent it to Jillian because I wanted as many people to see it as possible….I _thought_ I wanted that."

"What?"

"Why?"

Aria looked at them all directly. "Because I still live with those memories! Don't you? _A_ or _AD_ or whoever may be gone, but the nightmares aren't. Tell me you're over it! Tell me it doesn't still haunt you. Tell me you don't look over your shoulder every second."

Emily hugged herself and stared at her feet; Spencer's eyes were directly on Aria, but she somehow wasn't quite looking at her; Alison and Hanna looked toward one another in their periphery with recognition, admittance, reluctant understanding.

"Tell me," she let out a defeated breath, "that when an alarm goes off you don't still fold up like a pill bug, when you're alone on a road at night, you don't check the backseat. When I step into my closet for an outfit I see the walls of that crate, when I smell smoke from a campfire or hear a Patsy Cline song on the radio I'm right back in the dollhouse and," she took a long breath and looked to Hanna, then Emily, then Alison, "when I see my nieces smile, see them safe and happy, I know that I would kill anyone who threatened that safety or that happiness."

"Aria…," Spencer started.

"So I wrote it down in a journal, I hoped I could leave some of it on the page, but it didn't help. And then I thought, maybe if I share it with the world it will take the power from it, maybe everybody could take a little piece of the weight for me and then it wouldn't be that heavy."

"You could have talked to us," Emily finally spoke.

"When, Em? You and Ali are busy with the girls. Spence, you have to schedule time just to breathe between school and working with your mom. Han, Lucy's barely a year now, not to mention that fact that you and Caleb spend half of your time in Tarrytown working on the new house. Pretty soon you won't be here at all."

"I'm sorry that we doubted you, Aria," Alison said.

"It's not your fault, I barely explained in my letter. It's not your fault that you don't have time, either, that's not what I was trying to say."

"We know."

They all turned at the sound of the door opening. Ezra was focused on a stack of mail in his hand. "Honey, I'm home," he joked.

"Hey."

He smiled and looked up at the sound of Aria's voice. He was shocked at all of the girls staring at him. "I—I mean I _will be_ home in…ten minutes?"

"Five."

"In five minutes." He backed out and closed the door, never having removed his hand from the knob.

"So Jillian is the only one who saw it?"

"Yes. She assured me that no one else's eyes were on it, and she sent the original copy back to me in the mail," she promised Spencer.

"She could have made copies," Emily suggested, though her eyes had softened. The look she gave Aria was her apology.

"I don't know why she would've. Like I said, she's the only one who read it. She offered me the money unilaterally. It's her company so I guess she can do whatever she wants." Aria shrugged.

"We'll just have to trust that that's the truth," Spencer said.

"Why does it matter?" Hanna asked. "She's not publishing it."

"We just wouldn't want it to get into the wrong hands. It's a basically a modern Malleus Maleficarum."

"What?"

She looked at Hanna. "Among other things, it describes methods of torture."

"What are you saying?" Alison asked.

"That if the wrong person read it, they might use it to hurt someone."

"A copycat," Emily concluded.

"Exactly."


	2. Romantic Disruption

It was Saturday and the late-summer afternoon was beginning to darken with clouds. Spencer was littering a copy of Kanovitz's 13th edition on constitutional law with sticky notes when she heard the pang of knuckles on the glass door of the barn. She smiled when she saw Toby peeking out from behind a bundle of small white and green flowers, that bunched together in spheres.

"I grew them myself."

She smirked. "This late in the season? How many points is 'azaleas'?"

"Not as many as 'hydrangeas'."

"Oh." She stepped aside as an invitation.

Toby walked directly to the kitchen and retrieved a vase from the top cabinet.

Spencer leaned on the counter and followed his movements with her eyes. "So I'm not great with flowers, but I know plenty about apples."

He cocked his head as he filled the vase with water. "Apples?"

"It all comes down to property law."

"I see." He began cutting the flower stems.

"Did you bring your glasses?"

He placed the flowers in the vase and reached into the pocket of his plaid shirt to put them on. "I couldn't keep score otherwise."

"I'll get the board." Spencer's smile was wide as she practically bounced toward the living room, her textbook totally forgotten.

Toby shook his head as he watched her go as if he could shake the thought of her out of it. He couldn't, he never could.

* * *

Packed boxes were strewn about the loft, some had been re-opened, some were yet to be taped up.

"Do we have to do this now?" Caleb asked as he looked down at Hanna.

She was crouched in front of him with a blue tape measure slung over her shoulders, and a pin between her teeth. "Yes we do," she mumbled.

"What?"

She took the pin from her mouth. "Yes, we do." She nodded toward the cuffs of his suit pants. "The wedding is in less than a week and I'll probably have to hem these more than once, I'm just going to baste them now since you always seem to magically change height. Maybe if you didn't slouch so much and fidget."

"Emily and Alison won't even notice my suit pants."

She paused and looked up. "I'll notice them."

"We don't have the time to be doing this, you should have just taken these to a tailor."

"We do have the time, we have the time right now, that's why we are doing this _right now_."

"Ow!" he winced as she stabbed his ankle with a pin.

"Sorry," she said without a single touch of genuine regret.

"You have the girls' dresses done?"

She nodded. "You know, we still haven't had a proper ceremony."

"The house is taking longer than expected, Hanna, Lucy still isn't sleeping through the night, and we're already married!"

"The courthouse," she scoffed.

"The tent," he challenged.

She finished pinning his cuff and stood to look him directly in the eye. "Off."

He smirked at the command. "Yes, Ma'am."

She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. "I need to sew them."

Just as he removed the pants Lucy began to cry. "I've got it."

"Thanks, babe."

They kissed and Caleb shuffled through boxes toward the crib in nothing but his black boxer briefs and a t-shirt.

Hanna felt lucky, every day she felt like the luckiest girl in the world.

* * *

It was late afternoon when the clouds finally started to saturate and pour over with rain.

"So." Ezra started.

He had his arm lazily resting around his wife's shoulder as _Funny Face_ quietly played on the tv.

"So," Aria added.

"What was that all about? What did the girls want earlier?"

"What do you think?"

"The book."

She shifted slightly so she could look at him. "Yeah. They were mad."

"You didn't publish it!" He was immediately defensive of her.

"I know, and I told them that. It's all fine. They apologized for the overreaction."

Aria turned back and they enjoyed " _Bonjour! Paris."_

"I'm sorry that the movie didn't work out," Ezra said.

"I'm not."

He kissed her head.

"They didn't understand the tone of the book at all…the intent. No amount of money could put our story in their hands."

"Mm, maybe another offer will come along someday."

"Maybe." She snuggled further into his chest. "But I'm happy. I'm happy here and with you. I don't need a movie."

"Neither do I."

"How did your meeting with Jess go? What did he think of the latest draft?"

"He said it made Kerouac's original scroll look minimalistic."

"Still too wordy, huh?"

"That's what I interpreted it to mean."

"I thought he liked the beats."

"He's less New York City beats and more Venice Beach beats."

She laughed. "The original East Coast-West Coast rivalry, huh?"

"I guess so."

"I love doing this with you."

He looked down at her and squeezed her shoulder. "Doing what?"

"Laying here, watching Fred Astaire singing in front of the Arc du Triumph."

He turned her in his arms and leaned over her in order to scoop her up into a passionate kiss. "Me too."

"I'll never get sick of it," Aria whispered through her newly dampened lips.

* * *

Emily kissed the inside of Alison's thigh and moved up her body slightly to rest her head on her fiancée's stomach.

Ali ran her fingers through Emily's hair as she was cradled between her legs. She felt the light sheen of sweat on Emily's brow.

"What are you thinking about?"

"Is nothing sacred? First I give you my body and now you want my thoughts?"

Emily rolled her eyes and rolled over. She ran the blonde curls between Ali's legs between her index and middle finger.

Alison grabbed her hand and brought it to her mouth before kissing Emily's palm sloppily. She sucked on the tip of her index finger, and then kissed her palm again, and then her wrist before squeezing it tightly and bringing it to rest over her heart.

Emily felt the swift beat pulse below her damp fingertips, felt the slowly steadying rise and fall of Ali's breath. "There you go again," she chuckled.

"What?"

"Making everything so dramatic. I had a vibe going."

"I'm known in some circles as 'vibe-killer'."

"Mm, I thought it was Vivian Darkbloom."

"No not now…, but ten minutes ago…."

"Oh yeah?" Emily laughed as she crawled the bed and kissed her soon-to-be wife.

"Mmhm."

"Are you ready to be Mrs. DiLaurentis-Fields?"

She looked down at Emily and made sure she had her attention. "I have been ready for over nine years."

"You mean to tell me you considered marrying me when we were fifteen?"

"I had considered it. I used to imagine how 'Alison Fields' would sound."

"You did not!"

"I did!"

"Just 'Fields'?"

Alison took a deep breath. "I uh—I've been thinking…"

"Mm?"

"I'm thinking I don't want to hyphenate it. I want to be Alison just-Fields."

"Why's that?"

"Do you mind?"

Emily kissed her head. "No, of course, I don't mind. I'm just curious why you don't want to keep DiLaurentis."

Alison looked to the wall and bit her lip.

After a long silence Emily didn't expect her to answer, nor did she want to pressure her to.

But then she finally spoke. "My father is no one to be proud of."

"He always took care of you," Emily offered weakly.

"Yeah, and just me. He didn't know how to handle Jason's addiction. Worse, he threw Charlotte away. He just threw her away like she was garbage, all because he thought she was wrong."

Emily stroked her hair.

"Maybe this all could have been avoided. Maybe he's the real villain."

"Maybe." Emily sighed and tucked Ali's head under her arm. "Fields is all yours if you want it. Just Fields."

"Your father was a really good man, Em. I would be proud to have his name, your name."

* * *

The pang of Spencer's phone caused Toby to look up from the score sheet. Spencer had started to fall asleep as he tallied her most recent word: "incontrovertible."

"Spence, your phone."

"It's closer to you," she mumbled.

He grabbed it from the table.

"Just read it out loud to me." Spencer yawned as he unlocked the phone. She was met with an unexpected silence. "What is it?" she prompted.

He shook his head and tilted the phone toward her.

* * *

Lucy was slung over Caleb's shoulder as she drooled onto a cloth.

"She drank the whole bottle?"

"Yup." He patted her back rhythmically.

Hanna's phone vibrated from the top of a closed box.

"Oh my God!"

"What is it?"

* * *

Aria was slicing into a rhubarb pie as her phone rested on the counter next to the tin. When she saw it light up she didn't bother to drop the knife and unlock it, she simply leaned over to peek at it.

When he heard the thunk of a pie hitting the floor followed by the clang of a knife, Ezra dropped the remote and rushed to the kitchen.

"Aria?! Are you okay? What happened?"

Blood trickled from her fingers just below the knuckles, and Ezra rushed to help her. She was too stunned to move or cry.

* * *

Lily and Grace wobbled back and forth between their two mothers, passing each other as they went.

"Good job, Lily," Alison said as she reached her and she rubbed her nose to her daughter's before turning her around so she could head back to Emily.

Their phones beeped in unison.

"Was that yours or mine?"

"Both, I think."

Emily reached for her phone on the coffee table.

"Em?"

"You too?"

Alison nodded.

"Spencer just texted."

"'SOS. Meet at the barn asap,'" Alison read from her own phone.

"So you all got it too?" Hanna asked as she entered the barn. She held her phone in the air.

"'Happiness is the Devil's dream,'" Spencer began.

"'Break time's over, Bitches,'" Alison added.

Emily held her phone to her face. "These past two years may have been quiet…"

"but now I know all your secrets," Hanna and Aria finished together.


	3. Family Trust

**A/N: I've changed the title of this story to "The Sparrow Gang." "The Ripper Effect" was a working title I used because I couldn't remember what I wanted to call it when I uploaded it initially. The reason for the title will reveal itself later in the story. I will also be posting a new chapter for "The Simple Questions" by the end of the week. I know I haven't been posting on a regular schedule, but I've decided to put quantity and quality above frequency. Thank you _so much_ for the follows, favorites, and for the reviews, some of which are answered below. - James**

* * *

It was past the girls' bedtime and getting dark quickly. Alison set her phone down on Spencer's coffee table and moved to sit on the couch. Lily, who was sleeping on her shoulder, was beginning to feel heavy in her arms. Emily set Grace down on a blanket that Hanna and Caleb had laid out for Lucy, who slept soundly on her side.

When Aria sat down next to Alison, Lily opened her eyes slightly at the change in balance. She absently reached for her aunt's thumb and gripped it firmly in her tiny hand. Aria thought about how absurdly tiny the bones of her fingers must be, small as toothpicks and so easily breakable. Lily's skin had darkened as she grew but was still pink and damp at her fingertips. She fell back asleep while still holding Aria's thumb.

Alison gripped her daughter tighter as her mind drifted with Aria's to a dark corner where her children were not safe. Emily sat cross-legged with Grace and her niece on the blanket. Spencer was staring at her and the two babies with a chilling intensity as if she were ready to kill something that might pop out at any moment and harm them. Caleb paced while hugging himself firmly. His fingers turned white around the nails from how tightly he dug them into his upper arms. Toby stood stark still and the classic features of his face were contorted into an expression that resembled shell shock.

Ezra and Hanna's movements were reflective of their unpredictable thoughts. Sometimes they sat: on the arms of chairs, on the very edge of the couch next to Aria and Alison. Sometimes they stood: by the counter, on the edge of the baby blanket like sentries, in front of the couch. Sometimes they fidgeted: with the edges of the blanket, with their fingernails, with Aria's hair or the drawstrings on Caleb's sweatshirt.

"We have to do everything we can to keep the kids safe," Toby finally spoke to the silence. He gingerly plucked the glasses from his face and looked around at his friends.

No one responded initially. Then, Aria nodded her agreement and Spencer stood up to speak to them all.

"Alison," she pointed, "don't think about it, just tell me the first person you think of: who do you trust the least?"

She rolled her eyes. "How long have you got?"

"Forget it. Aria?"

"I—I don't know…. I don't know. Mona?"

"Don't think so hard."

"I don't know, Spencer!"

"It's not Mona," Hanna mumbled.

"What?"

"How do you know?"

Caleb's eyes were wide with disapproval.

"I've spoken to her a couple of times. She's living outside of Paris."

"Hanna—"

"Caleb, not now."

"I can't—"

"Please?"

He stopped, but Hanna knew it would be the source of an argument later.

Spencer turned. "Em? What about you?"

Emily sucked in a sharp breath, totally unable to deal with the reality that someone new was looking to torture them. "No!"

"Em…," Alison soothed.

She stared, unblinking at the blanket. "No! This is not happening. No."

Alison handed Lily to Aria and moved to hold Emily in her arms, but Emily didn't move or lean into her touch. "Em?"

Toby rubbed his face with his hand before walking over and placing it flat on Emily's shoulder.

Caleb finally unraveled his arms and marched to the edge of the blanket. He was breathing heavily, his eyes were wide, brow creased. He squatted down, resting his elbows on his knees and folding his hands together. He moved his head so that Emily would be forced to look at him. "Well, it is, Emily. It is happening."

"Caleb!" Hanna scolded, but his angry declaration helped.

Emily finally broke out of her daze, and Caleb stoically ignored the soul-burning glare that her fiancée was throwing at him.

Once he had her full attention, he continued. "So we can't just pretend it's not. That's never helped us before. We need to face this head on. Especially now that…." He had to take a long breath before continuing. He rested his forehead on his hands for a moment and finally looked back up. "Especially now that we have kids."

Emily nodded firmly. "You're right."

He stood and offered his hand to her.

She let him hoist her to her feet. "Spence?"

"Who do you trust the least, Em?"

She crossed her arms, shifted her weight from foot to foot, and bit her lip. She was looking at the floor while she responded. "Addison Derringer."

"Who's that?"

"One of the girls on my team. She's—she's awful."

Alison felt like she couldn't breathe, but she stood to wrap Emily in her arms, and this time Emily responded by tucking her head into Ali's shoulder.

Spencer nodded. "Ezra?"

"Jillian Howe." He didn't hesitate. He looked a Spencer directly and with a shivering intensity.

"Who's that?" Hanna wondered.

"Jillian Howe of the Howe Book House," Aria explained.

Spencer narrowed her eyes. "Oh…."

"The manuscript," Aria realized in horror.

"Do you still have the copy that Jillian sent back to you?"

Aria nodded.

Ezra grabbed his jacket. "I'll go get it."

Spencer approached her laptop. "Aria, do you have an electronic copy? On your email maybe?"

She shook her head. "Just on my own computer."

"I'll grab that too," Ezra added.

Caleb uncrossed his arms. "I'll—"

Toby interrupted him with a firm hand on his shoulder. "No, you won't. Stay with Lucy. Ezra, I'll go with you."

The chill of the late summer evening gusted in as they closed the door behind them.

* * *

By midnight, the twins were clean, fed, and soundly sleeping again atop a pile of blankets in the living room. Toby and Emily were bathing Lucy in Spencer's farm sink while everyone else sat around the coffee table with half-empty mugs of coffee getting cold in front of them. They each held forty-five pages of Aria's manuscript, except for Caleb who was assigned the final 18, and Aria who was staring at the original copy on her laptop.

Caleb sat in the armchair and he had a pen dutifully poised above a blank piece of paper. Spencer was next to him, perched on the arm of the chair.

She looked up. "Alison, you have pages 1 through 45?"

"Mm," she responded through a sip of coffee. She swallowed and began thumbing back through the top right corner of the pages before stopping midway. "Except…," she split the pages and laid them on the table, "for page 22."

"Aria?"

She scrolled through her manuscript. "That's the freezer and the shower….The time I was stuck in the crate is mentioned too."

Caleb marked that down on his paper.

" 'Jamie and I had a bad habit of getting stuck in things,'" Aria read, " 'sometimes together, like Lucy and Ethel, but getting stuck in a giant freezer wasn't nearly as funny as Jess Oppenheimer would have you think.'"

"Who?" Emily asked.

"The head writer of I Love Lucy, responsible for many episodes including episode 1.29: The Freezer," Hanna answered nonchalantly.

They all gaped at her, even Toby who held a naked Lucy under her arms, and Emily who paused while drying her legs.

Hanna shrugged and rolled her eyes. "What?"

Lucy whined and Emily wrapped her in the towel.

"Wait is she…?" Aria asked.

"No," Hanna said unconvincingly.

For a moment, no one moved and the only sound was of the water sliding into the sink drain and gurgling to a stop.

"Okay…," Spencer began again. "How in detail does the description go, Aria?"

Toby finished buttoning up Lucy's onesie and laid her down next to the twins, who she curled into for warmth before finding her thumb to suck.

"I speak about the pipes that dispensed the nitrogen gas, and used it and the shower as an example of _A's_ resourcefulness.

" 'The freezer was ideal because it was heavy and hard to open even without a lock, but it also had a mechanical lock that required a passcode,'" she read. " 'It was a miracle that Amy got us out. It's key that the freezer appeared to have two mechanisms to lock, Amy was distracted by the first and didn't realize that destroying the second would free us. _A_ had a habit of mixing technological malfunction and basic mechanical principles, like an evil MacGyver... Only the Hearst's extravagant taste in steam showers allowed for _A_ to override its function and nearly kill Jamie, but the only thing that kept her from opening the double thick glass doors was a single rod that had been slipped between the outside handles.'"

"Jesus! Aria, did you have to go into such detail?!"

She ignored Spencer's comment and kept reading. " 'When I pulled out the rod, I felt my heart start to beat again. The fear that I might lose my best friend had stopped it in preparation for a potential break. I held her tightly in order to remind myself that she was okay and begged her to tell me what happened. 'What happened?' I asked desperately. Out of breath, I begged, 'what happened? What happened? What happened…?''" She looked up at Spencer as she finished.

Spencer had tears in her eyes, but she blinked them away. "I'm sorry. I—"

"No, Spence, I'm sorry."

"You should be apologizing," Hanna jibed, "Jamie Hearst? Amy Lea? And I can't believe you named me Donna Sails!"

"Donna like Karen, and sails like a mariner."

"Guys!" Alison interrupted.

"I'm sorry. Are we upsetting you, Miss Addie Lawrence?" Hanna sniped.

Ali rolled her eyes.

Spencer sighed and turned. "Ezra, you have pages 46 through 90?"

He was sitting on a kitchen stool that he had dragged closer to the group. "Almost. I have 46 through 62 and 70 through 90."

Aria began scrolling.

Emily slid the throw off the back of the couch and sat down next to Alison, wrapping it around them both. Alison sighed and leaned into her fiancée.

Toby put his glasses on before taking Caleb's seat and the paper and pen. Caleb retrieved his pages from the table and moved to sit next to Hanna by the sleeping babies. She reached behind his head and began to idly play with his hair. He thumbed through the corners of his paper stack while Aria found what Ezra was missing.

"Pages 62 through 70 are the second half of chapter 2: 'Addie's Ghost'." Aria started.

Alison sucked in a sharp breath and Emily squeezed her tightly.

Aria looked at her apologetically and she smiled just enough to say _"it's okay."_

" 'Addie's ghost haunted us all, but she haunted Amy the most. We may have been terrified and overwhelmed, but Amy was simply heartbroken... For someone who had died, Addie continued to play a remarkably large role in our lives. What had our torturer done to chase her into the grave? What had we done wrong? Were we next? These questions hung in the air around us, and we breathed them in and breathed them back out daily. One should never underestimate the power of memory, the power of fear, and most importantly, the power of guilt. That was another strength of _A's_ : psychological torture.'"

They were all stunned to silence.

The television flickered to life.

 _"You just left me. You let me die, Emily."_ Maya's voice sang out sadly from the speakers. Her words were bent and disjointed; they had all been sampled from different recordings of her: online videos and phone calls. The _'you just,'_ was almost nonchalant, the _'left me'_ mumbled, _'die'_ was gushing, and _'Emily'_ was sad.

Emily stood up, the blanket slipping from her shoulders, and turned to face the television screen. Maya's face appeared and she was speaking, but the words were out of sync. The audio had been dubbed over the video she had recorded about Emily almost ten years ago.

"You just left me," it looped.

As Emily began to cry, Alison groped the remote desperately trying to shut it off, but the screen just switched to a different image.

 _"You never cared about me did you, Spencer?"_ Wren asked.

Lily awoke to the sound and began to cry. It was an awful, twisted wail.

Wren's voice and face were even more distorted than Maya's. It was as if some words had to be generated by a computer.

Emily snapped out of her haze and rushed to her daughter's side with her fiancée close behind her.

The other girls stirred at the sound so Alison comforted Grace and Caleb bounced Lucy on his shoulder.

"Can you at least lower the volume?" Ali begged as she covered Lily's ears.

Spencer was pressing every button she could but to no avail.

 _"I think they should call you 'Daddy',"_ Alex's voice rang out, though the screen went dark. It was consistent but distant as if she were having a private conversation. Her maniacal laugh followed, then a loop of just her saying the word _'daddy'_ played over and over.

"Forget this!" Hanna stomped toward the t.v., reached her hand behind it and yanked the power cord out of the wall. The screen shut off, fading from gray to total black, but the audio continued to play through the surround sound speakers.

"Caleb," Spencer begged.

He nodded, handed Lucy to Hanna, and began searching the sound system for a solution.

Meanwhile, Toby slipped into the storage room by the kitchen without explanation. Spencer eyed him curiously but didn't say a word.

 _"You shot me, Aria!"_ Shana screamed through the speakers. _"You shot me, you shot me, you shot me!"_

Everything went black. They were surrounded by silence.

"Toby!" Spencer screamed.

"I'm fine," he said as his silhouette emerged from the storage room. "I just shut off the main breaker to the barn."

Aria was curled into Ezra's chest and Alison stroked her hair while bouncing Grace in the other.

"Glad Toby shut it off before we got to Ali's shit list, huh?"

"Seriously, Han?" Spencer chided.

She shrugged.

* * *

The babies eventually settled again, though they were awake. They looked around curiously. Hanna gave Lucy a bottle, and all three needed to be changed.

"Should I try to turn it back—"

"No!" all five girls cut Toby off.

He held his hands up.

Ezra sat on the blanket and tried to get Lucy to roll over onto her back. The twins began drifting back to sleep next to them.

"Why the hell did Alex keep saying 'daddy'," Hanna wondered. "Is it like a sex thing?"

Emily chewed her bottom lip. "You don't think Wren is…?"

"No," Aria and Spencer said a little too quickly.

Hanna and Caleb shook their heads.

"Whoever is just trying to mess with our heads, Em," Ali comforted.

Emily crossed her arms. "It doesn't matter anyway, though….Right?"

Alison smiled and mouthed _"no."_ Emily leaned against Alison's shoulder and kissed her neck lightly.

Once Lucy tired of being on her stomach, Ezra flipped her back over and let her drift into sleep. After a moment, he spoke up. "We can't go through the rest of the manuscript in the dark.

"Does it even matter anymore?" Caleb asked.

"If we know what pages are missing, then we can be one step ahead of whoever is doing this," Spencer stressed.

"I know how we can be _more_ than one step ahead: we get the hell out of here! We can go wherever, maybe even get some new identities, but we need to leave."

Spencer nodded "Emily is right, we need to get up and go."

"No! Em…, I can tell you from experience that running doesn't work."

"Who said we're running?" Spencer asked.

"You did…," Aria said.

Hanna scoffed. "Like one second ago."

"No, I said we have to leave. Not to _run away_ , but to _chase_."

"What?"

"First stop: Howe Book House."

"And then?" Toby asked.

"We see where it leads us, but we keep digging until we find out who's trying to hurt us."

"Then what do we do once we find out."

Spencer settled her eyes on the empty space behind them, but her gaze was stern and her posture certain. "Then..., we take them down." She paused between each word, leaving no room to be misunderstood.

"What about the girls?" Ali asked.

"Yeah," Hanna added, "we can't put them in danger."

"I know," Spencer said sadly, "we need to leave them behind."

"How is that any safer?!" Alison demanded.

Spencer turned to her. "Ali, who do you trust most in this world other than Emily?"

"You."

"Other than me and Emily?"

"Jason."

Spencer nodded once. "Me too."

"He definitely has the money to keep them safe," Toby said.

"And more importantly, the will," Emily added.

"Not just Jason." Spencer turned to Toby.

He gaped. "What? No! I'm coming with you."

She tilted her head. "Toby…."

"No. No way. The last time I left you, your evil twin took your place. I'm never looking the other way again, Spence. Never."

"This new person isn't after you, and you don't owe me anything anymore. The girls…,"

"The girls will be safe with Jason and with their grandmothers. I know they will. I don't know that you will be safe without me, I don't know that any of you will."

It was the most Toby had said all night, and they all stared at him in surprise.

"Okay?" he finally asked.

Spencer nodded.

The sun began to seep in between the trees.

"I'm sorry but I'm not about to leave my daughter behind and in the care of some fuck-up-turned-philanthropist!" Caleb fumed.

"Down nerd boy, you're not the only one who's improved himself since high school," Alison bit back.

"Stop!" Emily pleaded with them.

"Caleb," Hanna soothed, "they trust him, and we trust them."

"She wouldn't live with him, Caleb," Spencer explained, "she could stay with Ashley. Jason would simply provide financial support and security."

"Security?"

"I thought we could talk to him about keeping eyes on the girls."

"He's had practice with a that."

"He's a good man."

After an achingly hollow silence, Caleb finally nodded.

"I can't believe this. I can't believe this. We can't seriously be talking about leaving our children behind. When I said leave, Spence, I meant take our families _with us_ and run."

"I know, Em, but we've always been on the defense when this type of thing happens, it's time to offensive."

"But leaving the girls? They're so young! They're still breastfeeding and learning to talk. Lucy hasn't even taken her first steps yet."

"And they will live somewhere far far away from here eventually, but we need to make sure they live to leave this town. Bringing them on a witch hunt is hardly good for their safety."

"But if we stay here and do nothing they won't be safe either," Aria explained.

"Exactly."

"We could talk to the—"

"I know you aren't going to say 'police'," Alison cut Hanna off.

"Never mind."

"We need a plan," Aria said.

Spencer continued, "we need money that can't be traced."

"We could close out our accounts," Toby suggested.

"Mm, too obvious. We need to withdraw random amounts from different places at random times. We can build up a cash base over the next couple of days."

"Fake identities?" Ezra asked.

"Maybe. We also need transport."

"Don't you need paperwork to purchase a car?"

Emily and Hanna were both too shocked to join the conversation.

Alison spoke as she rubbed Emily's back. "Not if the person you're buying it from doesn't care. Spence?"

"Toby, find something on Craig's list: big enough to hold us all, cheap, and owned by someone who will accept cash and doesn't give a shit who buys it."

He nodded.

"What will we tell our families? What about your degree? Ali, what about your students?" Aria asked.

Ali shrugged as Spencer answered. "I don't know. I don't know yet, but there's something very important that we all have to do right now."

They all waited eagerly.

"Sleep," she finally breathed out.

They all sighed and slouched and mumbled their agreement. But, before everyone settled down Alison's heart sunk to her stomach and she slipped onto her knees in surrender to her fear.

"Alison?" Emily followed her down to the floor. "What is it?"

She looked up. All the color had drained from her face. "Em..."

"Oh God!"

"The wedding is in two days."

Everyone stopped and looked to their friends.

* * *

 **Chobits3 & Leapyearbaby29:** My decision on Ali's decision was a hard one to make. On the one hand, Alison is a very proud and dignified person and she _is_ a DiLaurentis, but on the other hand, she is regretful about what really ended up being a kind of cardboard-cut-out family for her. Alison ended up being no more than a cousin to most of the people she thought were her siblings, her mother-a Drake-is dead, and her father was a terrible man. I think her deciding to drop her birthname altogether is pretty consistent with her character post season 6B. She took the name Rollins to escape herself, for example. Though I love the name Alison DiLaurentis-Fields, I didn't think Ali would.

 **Emmyloufan:** I'd hoped that no one would have to suspend too much disbelief to accept Aria sending in her manuscript, and I hoped that her decision to protect her relationship in season 7B would justify my choice to a degree. However, I was also hesitant to make it just about the plot, like the show itself sometimes did. I think Aria is still dealing with the trauma of the past, like all of the girls, and she made an impulsive decision that she ultimately retracted upon re-examination. All of the girls can be a bit impulsive, and we will see them all make rash decisions, but they won't be meek or incompetent like they sometimes were on the show just to advance the plot.

 **Guest #5 (disappointed with the Alex reveal)** : I agree that the reveal was kind of anti-climactic! For this story, _A_ will, by the nature of the plot, again not be anyone we've met before on the show. I hope that it will still be more satisfying, though!

 _Thank you to everyone who left their stamp of approval and encouraged me to continue!_


	4. Calling Shotgun

_"_ _No, they have to be trumpet lilies," Alison explained into the phone._

 _Aria watched as she paced around Spencer's kitchen._

 _"_ _Oh really, Karen?" Alison fumed. "That's interesting because I'm currently holding the sample and it looks a hell of a lot like an Asiatic lily."_

 _Alison squeezed the stem of the plant until it folded and fell apart. She threw open the cabinet door below the sink and tossed the remnants in the trash._

 _"_ _Ali…," Spencer cautioned, which earned her a look of terror from Aria._

 _"_ _No, I don't think you understand, Karen! My fiancée likes trumpet lilies. Out of all the pictures, I showed her of all of the flowers she chose white, trumpet lilies. That's what she wants, and that's what she will get."_

 _Aria thought back to the conversation Emily and Alison had had over the results of a google image search. Emily had pointed to an image and mumbled, "that one," between a bite of toast and shrugged._

 _"_ _Any competent florist would know the difference between two of the most common lily varieties and—"_

 _Ali paused as Karen responded._

 _"_ _Specify? I did specify! Of course, I specified! Not only have you given me the wrong flower, but now you've accused me of making the wrong selection. How dare you? We're done. We'll be taking our business elsewhere." Alison's voice became frighteningly calm as she finished and hung up the phone._

 _Alison barely bothered to breathe before asking where Hanna was._

 _"_ _Probably hiding from you," Spencer said._

 _"_ _Spence…," Aria chided._

 _"_ _I need to go over the girls' dresses with her."_

 _"_ _Ali, she's not Karen the florist, she'll do an amazing job."_

 _Alison sighed. "I know….Am I being irrational?"_

 _"_ _No…," Spencer began._

 _"_ _Of course not!" Aria added._

 _"_ _You just want…"_

 _"_ _everything to be perfect and you're stressed."_

 _"_ _It's normal." Spencer shrugged as she and Aria lied and tried to assure Alison as a team._

 _Hanna came into the barn just then and was immediately attacked by Alison. "Hanna, we need to talk about the dresses and…where are you going?"_

 _The minute Alison began Hanna backed back out through the door and left._

 _Alison crossed her arms and turned her reddening face toward Aria and Spencer. "Where is she going?!"_

 _"_ _Probably just to get something from the car," Aria offered._

 _"_ _Ali, breathe."_

 _She let Spencer pull her arms from her chest and hold her by the shoulders. She looked up at her cousin and whispered, "I just want everything to be perfect for Emily."_

 _"_ _I know."_

 _"_ _She deserves the world."_

 _"_ _But she only_ wants _you."_

* * *

Everyone stood around Alison, who was crouched on the floor and wrapped in Emily's arms.

"Alison, did you hear what I said?" Spencer asked.

She shook her head.

"I asked if you wanted to go ahead with the ceremony."

Alison finally looked up, and Emily stared at her worriedly. "I don't know."

"I don't think you should, Ali," Hanna said. "What if this new 'A' tries to sabotage it?"

"Ali," Emily whispered, "why don't we wait until all of this is over to go through with the wedding?"

"I wanted it to be perfect for you."

"For me?"

Alison nodded into Emily's shoulder.

Hanna cleared her throat to get their attention. "No ceremony doesn't mean there can't be a wedding."

"Yeah," Caleb agreed, "we know someone."

It was eight in the morning when they all filed into Justice Johnson's office. Hanna smiled at her.

"Glad to see you during business hours," she joked.

"Thank you so much for fitting us in, Caly."

"It's no problem."

Alison whispered to Emily, "what did your mom say when you dropped the girls off?"

"That she understands that we need time to prepare for the wedding."

"I wish they could be here, all three of them."

"Me too."

"How's your mother?" the Justice asked Hanna.

"She's good. She's with her granddaughter right now."

Justice Johnson smiled. "Yours?"

Caleb nodded.

"Congratulations."

"Speaking of my mother, do you mind not mentioning this to her?"

"Why not?"

They all looked around at one another grasping for an excuse or hoping someone else would have one.

She put her hands up. "You know what? I don't need to know."

"Wait, so we decided not to tell our families?" Emily asked.

"We're not telling them?" Aria asked at almost the same time.

Hanna shrugged and crossed her arms. "I don't know! I don't know…, I'm just playing it safe."

Spencer chimed in, "I don't think we should tell—"

"Let's not worry about this now," Aria interrupted as she saw Alison's face grow increasingly weary. "This is about Emily and Alison. The two of you don't need to worry about anything right now except each other. Okay?"

Alison sighed and grabbed Emily's hand. "Okay." She smiled.

"Who will be witnessing this union?"

"My cousin, Spencer Hastings, on my behalf."

"And Toby on mine," Emily said.

"What?!

"Hanna, how could I choose between you and Aria?"

"So you choose neither of us?!"

"It's really just a formality I—"

"Get over it, Hanna."

"Nobody asked you, Ali."

"Guys, stop!" Spencer begged. "Justice, I'm sorry, please continue."

Emily grabbed Hanna's arm and tugged her along as she approached the judge. "Aria," she motioned with her head for Aria to come too. "Both of you," she said as she jostled them, "stand next to each other."

Hanna and Aria linked their arms behind Emily as Spencer led Alison by the shoulders to stand across from her fiancée.

"After the ceremony, the witnesses just have to sign a form along with the brides and myself," the Justice explained.

Emily looked at Toby. He nodded and smiled, "I've got my pen ready."

Emily laughed.

"Justice, how long before they receive the license?" Toby wondered.

"Well, I happen to be the one that mails out the approved licenses, so you can walk away with it as soon as the ceremony is over. Did you have vows?"

Alison nodded and Spencer handed them each a piece of paper before handing the Justice paper as well.

"What's this?"

"Their full names," Spencer whispered.

"Okay, shall we get started?"

Emily inhaled a sharp, happily nervous breath and she began repeating after Justice Johnson.

"I, Emily Catherine Fields, take you, Alison Lauren DiLaurentis, as my lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health…."

"Em…?"

"Death has already tried to do us part, a few times, but it never has."

The Justice smiled and accepted the change before turning to Alison. "Please repeat after me: I Alison…"

"…Lauren DiLaurentis, take you, Emily Catherine Fields, to be my lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and health…,"

"until—"

"Forever," Alison whispered through tears.

They leaned in for a brief kiss.

Spencer's face lit up. "You're supposed to save that for the end guys." She laughed and cried at once.

Hanna and Aria both shushed her as if she were interrupting the finale of they're favorite t.v. show.

"Emily, would you like to read your vows?"

Alison focused on Emily, pretending they were alone.

"Ali, you said to me when you proposed that I made you a better woman, because I searched for one. But, I've always loved more than just your potential to be good, Ali, I've loved you. I loved you when you were cruel because I knew you would regret it; I loved you when you were angry because I knew you were scared; I loved you when you were defensive because I knew you were loyal; when you were mean I knew it was the only way you had to say that you cared. I knew it must have hurt your heart, though, to not know how to show love and now I promise to continue teaching you, I promise to always remind you of who you really are, I promise to still be there in the moments that you forget, and I promise to love every part of you. I know I've acted like I can't in the past,—"

Alison shook her head.

"but I can. Ali, I _can_ , and I will."

Alison sighed, and just as everyone expected Emily to finish, she continued. "Finally, I want to say something on behalf of someone who can't be here with us today." Emily didn't realize just how many people would miss this moment when she wrote her vows, but she went on. "I know how hard it has been for you to face so many milestones in your life without your mother, and up until now I haven't really known what to say or what she would say. Today, though, I know exactly what she would say. Despite your mother's mistakes, you shouldn't doubt her love for you or doubt that she would support us." Emily took a deep breath as she prepared to bring up one of the most painful periods of her life. "Wh—when….When you were—when I thought you were gone for good and your mother thought so too, she said something to me. She said that she wished you could have returned my feelings, because she couldn't think of a better person to love you than me," she finished. "Please tell me those are happy tears."

Alison nodded as she cried. "They are. They are, I just wish that I had gone first."

Emily sighed and wiped Alison's cheeks for her.

Alison looked at her paper. "Emily, I made you promise to continue fighting for the goodness in me and you agreed, but now is my time for me to make promises to you. To the girl who trusts in everyone's goodness, I promise to always trust you; the girl who is endlessly kind, I promise to always be kind to you; to the girl who always remains loyal to her friends, I swear my loyalty you. Emily, you've always protected me, and now I am promising to protect you and our girls without limit or exception. I promise take care of you when you are exhausted of taking care of everyone else. I promise to give you my heart, my soul, and every piece of my body and only you for eternity without condition or retraction. I promise to try every day to be the person you've always seen in me. Your love is a privilege and I love you in return, against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, and against all discouragement that can be."

"You may now share a kiss."

And they did.

Everyone clapped and rushed to brush away their tears.

"Oh wow! Look," Emily said as she pointed to the judge's desk. "It's the flower we were going to have at the ceremony."

Alison turned and focused on the spotted, orange and brown tiger lily and her face fell. "What?"

"You know, you asked me to pick and I pointed to that one," Emily explained.

"Oh God!" Aria said before bursting into a fit of laughter.

Justice Johnson offered the flower to them as a wedding present and it sat in the cup holder of the car's front consul leaning and bouncing as they drove.

Their happiness slowly dissipated during the ride to Pam's house, though, and was replaced by realization.

* * *

Caleb had gone to Ashley's to pick up his daughter. Ezra was at the bank withdrawing a little over three-thousand dollars from The Brew's bank account in cash. The teller's curiosity was sparked.

"I'm going to Guatemala in a few days," he lied effortlessly, "I'm going to exchange this for quetzales and buy some green coffee direct from the farmers there. We take our coffee very seriously."

"That's a lot of coffee," she mumbled as he walked away.

Toby was alone in Spencer's barn glued to her laptop as he searched for a big cheap car with an owner who didn't ask questions.

The girls all sat around Pam's living room as she offered them coffee. "You girls look tired. I thought you decided against a bachelorette party."

"We were just up making sure everything is set for the wedding, Mrs.—Pam," Aria explained.

Emily and Alison clung to their sleepy daughters, knowing that these would be the last moments they would have with them for a very long time. Pam went back to the kitchen to grab cream and sugar, which left the girls to discuss their plan.

"Why can't we tell our families?" Emily demanded.

Spencer leaned closer and whispered, "because they would try to stop us, maybe even reach out to the police."

Alison nodded. "This way they won't know where or how to find us."

"What if they need us?" Aria asked.

"Then _we_ find _them_." Ali had more practice than she wished she had with such things.

"When does Jason get here?"

"At noon. I told him to meet us at the house because he wanted to see the girls."

Emily stood up. "I'll tell Mom that we all need some rest and then we can head there."

Lucy was undisturbed when Caleb pulled up to a gas pump and shut off the car. She has been happy with their trip to Home Depot, and all the sights and smells. He didn't bother to fill up his SUV, but instead filled up five five-gallon red gasoline cans.

On the first can an older man with a white beard that covered his neck grumbled from the opposite pump, "if that's for the mower, you're gonna want to get the ethanol free."

"Thanks, but it's for the, um, snow plow."

"It's still summer."

"Well, I like to be prepared."

"You're especially going to want no ethanol then since the gas will just be sitting there."

"It's not for the mower and it's not for the goddamn plow, okay?!"

The man put his hands up before walking in to pay.

Two cars had come and gone from the other pump when Caleb was on to the final can. The woman across from him scowled.

"I have a coupon." He shrugged.

Jason wanted to announce his good news to the girls, but couldn't, because when he walked into the living room, he immediately sensed that something was wrong.

"Okay, when you're all silent and staring at each other I start to worry."

"We need your help," Spencer explained.

"With…?"

"We need your promise that you won't tell anyone what we're doing and your promise that you will protect the twins and Lucy," Alison explained.

"I can promise the second part, but I need some more information about the first."

Aria then spoke the first words she had to Jason in almost two years. "We can't tell you until you promise."

He sighed, bit his top lip, and put his hands on his hips. "God, fine! What is it?"

Just then the girls' phones buzzed and beeped in unison.

"Oh no," Jason said as he realized what must be going on.

" 'Don't worry ladies, it's you I want. What I want is what I get, four Barbies and four Kens to make a set. – RS'" Spencer read.

"Was it signed the last time?"

"No."

"What could 'RS' mean?" Aria wondered.

"Wait so…, who's Barbie and who's Ken?" Hanna asked as she gestured between Emily and Alison.

"Han, seriously?" Emily complained.

"Yeah, who cares, that's a dumb question," Alison added.

"It's obvious anyway," Emily continued, "Ali's Ken and I'm—"

"What?!"

"Ali, I'm just saying that—"

"I am so not Ken, if anybody is Ken, you're Ken! You're sporty."

"Barbie can be sporty."

"Yeah don't be sexist, Ali," Hanna agreed.

"Guys!" Spencer wrangled them.

"You're both Barbie," Jason assured them kindly. "So you need help with whoever is threatening you?"

Spencer shook her head. "We are going to find out who is doing this for ourselves and finish this. We are leaving in a day or so, no explanations, no phones, no credit cards…."

Jason's couldn't look at his runaway sister as he remembered her doing just what Spencer was describing all those years ago.

"We have a lead in New York, a publisher. We're going to start there."

"How long will you be gone?"

"That's just it," Aria said, "we don't know, which means you will have to commit to staying in one place for, potentially, a really long time."

"That won't be a problem," he said with a surprising haste.

"What?" Alison was baffled.

"Why don't you look outside and see what I drove up in."

The girls stood in the drive and stared at the UHaul.

"You're moving back?" Alison asked.

"Well, there's some news I have to share. Happy news, well it was happy….I bought Toby's old house, the one he fixed up. He gave me a very good deal on it and I made him promise not to say anything until we had the chance to talk."

Alison started to cry. "You're finally coming home and we're leaving."

Jason put an arm over her shoulder and kissed the top of her head. "I'll be here for the girls, they can move in with me, they'll live right next door to their grandmother."

Emily smiled.

"But, you won't be gone for long will you?" he asked hopefully.

"We don't know yet," Hanna explained.

"What about Lucy?"

"She's going to stay with my mother, but we'd like you to also look out for her."

He nodded. "So Ashley…?"

She shook her head. "She doesn't know, we are just going to have to leave Luc—" Hanna was cut off by her own tears.

Jason's eyes and voice softened even further. "I will make sure that she is safe. Nothing will happen to her and she will be waiting for you when you come home."

Hanna looked at him with silent thanks.

Jason knew that this would mean talking to Ashley for the first time since Alison's trial, and he took a deep breath in preparation.

"I know this is a lot," Spencer said.

"The wedding?"

"We got married this morning, but no one else knows," Emily said.

"I missed it?"

"I'm sorry."

"What about the ceremony?"

"People will just have to consider it the official announcement that we're gone," Alison added darkly.

"Congratulations."

"Thanks."

"What about money?"

Spencer shrugged. "We have what we have, we can't leave a trail."

He nodded. "Tell me a name, whatever name you choose, and I will put you on the account for McSarim."

"For what?"

He lowered his voice. "It's what's left of the Carissimi Group….Use it rarely and discretely. Keep it as a safety net."

* * *

Toby drove over three hours to Stockport, New York to meet with the owner of a van that he hoped would be in decent condition.

The large man in a faded pink t-shirt was silent save for a few sighs or grunts as he followed Toby around the van.

"The check engine light is on."

The man sighed and wordlessly walked around to the fuel door and flipped it open before tightening the gas cap.

Toby checked the light again and nodded.

"So you want it?"

"I'll take it."

"Need plates?"

"Huh?"

"Ya need plates? I can also do a registration for you."

Toby couldn't believe his luck. "One-stop shopping…."

"That's the idea. $400 for the plates, $375 for the registration, or a combination deal for $700."

Toby nodded slowly. "I'll take the deal."

The man walked into his garage past a teal Chevy Lumina that was hoisted on a jack. "You running from something or after something?"

"Little bit of both."

He grunted and ran his finger over a file cabinet before he landed on a drawer labeled with a particular state name. "Best to go with Tennessee, half the plates there are unregistered anyway and nobody really cares."

Toby took the plates.

"Give me a name for the registration."

"To—um…"

"Jack?"

"Jack," Toby agreed.

"Give me a last name."

Toby noticed a yellow tape measure on the bench the man sat at. "Stanley."

"Okay, Jack No-Middle-Name Stanley."

After some well-placed white-out, a copier filled with just the right glossy gray paper, and a small perforator, Toby was holding a forged but convincing registration for a beige 1990 Chevy conversion van complete with Tennessee license plates. He pulled it up behind the UHaul Jason has brought, and asked everyone back outside.

"Is that a bus?" Hanna asked as she crossed her arms.

"Technically it's a van."

"Will it fit us?" Aria asked.

"Seats 9 including the driver, plus has a little space to spare in the back."

"Wow."

"And it has plates and a registration."

"How…?" Spencer wondered.

"A really helpful man in a pink shirt and $700."

"Wow."

"Wow."

Caleb pulled up just then and began unloading all of the gas cans he'd filled.

"We're really doing this," Aria said.

"Yeah, we are," Emily answered sadly.


End file.
